Snowman Soup

Do you need a cute idea for neighbor gifts, teacher gifts, babysitters, etc? Kierste at Brown Paper Packages had this cute idea so I took it and ran with it. I'm so thankful for crafty people who share their ideas for people like me to copy!

I put two packages of hot cocoa mix, two thin mint candies, a handful of marshmallows and two candy canes in a treat bag. I attached these cute cards that I modeled after Kierste's with ribbon and VOILA! A cute and inexpensive gift for friends and neighbors.

These are the little tags I made to attach to the bags. If you're interested in downloading them, you can do that HERE.

Or you can click on the picture and save as a .jpg image.

Linked Here:
Someday Crafts
Trendy Treehouse

Christmas Home Tour #2

Tiffany showed you her beautiful Christmas tour yesterday... and I'll admit... I hate to follow that! :) But, so you can see how the other half of That Village House is doing Christmas... Here it goes.

I went VERY simple this year on the mantle. In fact if you take a look at my Fall mantle NOTHING moved! I just replaced the fall things with Christmas things.

I've already shown you my tree and the story it tells.

My coffee filter wreath has a new home for the holidays. I got this great wreath stand from our girls trip to Canton.



As I envisioned when I did these shutters my wreath works out great.

Our yearly frames find their home this year on our built in cabinets in the dining room. If you look closely it looks like I'm a year behind on printing a photo! This is me... love me or leave me. :)

Another Canton find I just added Poinsettias to for my front door.

So this tree was supposed to remain undecorated except the lights. My husband and the kids got a hold of it while I was inside decorating the other tree. Since the kids are 4 and almost 3 I couldn't stand to break their hearts by taking all the balls and garland down. They were so proud of what they'd done!


I was inspired by the beautiful wreaths in Pottery Barn last year so my mom and I created this one. I love it (and the price)!!


Our Santa pictures line the piano. We see the same Santa every year which makes it fun to display them all together.

So, my decor is a little on the plain side this year. Maybe I'll hit some after Christmas sales and do more next year. I made a decision to get rid of every piece of decor that I didn't either love or use. And I'm left with the bare minimum. The good news is that Goodwill will be getting a donation from me pretty soon!


Linking Here:

Christmas Home Tour

I've been collecting Christmas decorations for 7 years now, just waiting for the opportunity to pull them all out. You see, this is our 1st year since we've been married that we get to celebrate Christmas at our house! We've used the excuse of my January due date (baby #3) to stay in town. So instead of getting on the road, we have family coming to visit us! So you can imagine, I'm more than excited to empty my tubs of decorations!

In general I steer clear of glitz and glitter, but I've been drawn to the bright greens and reds that are so popular right now. So my decorations are a mix between county and bling. I just pulled it all out and found that I love it all. So here is a picture heavy post of this year's decorations. Enjoy!

Want to make these boxes? Click here.

These were the centerpieces that I made for Advent.

I'd love to show you more, but this is about all I've done so far. We'll see what else I find in the rest of these tubs!

Let your tree tell a story

Do you have a beautiful tree all decorated for Christmas? Is it like one of these that's all coordinated and matchy matchy?


Or is yours more like mine... (please ignore the fact that a partial strand burned out AFTER I hung the lights... I haven't had time to go back and fix that!)

While my tree won't be winning any awards or be featured on any blog (other than ours! ha) it is OUR tree and it tells a story.

Like this ornament... when our oldest daughter was 6 months old and we were trying out the stay-at-home job while my hubby was on a very low income we visited Colorado with my parents. We took our little family to the Royal Gorge and after paying an arm and a leg to get in we visited the gift shop as we always do to pick out an ornament. Sadly we couldn't afford a thing! So, being the frugal momma I am, I picked out a keychain for $3.95 and wrote the story on the back... it now hangs proudly on our tree as a memory of where we once were.

Or this... a reminder of our first Christmas as a married couple.




And these two which if hung on separate trees mean nothing... but together it shares with the world we are a house divided!

And this one which was bought the winter before we moved to Colorado so that we'd have a reminder of our Texas roots (which eventually pulled us back home!). :)

Finally, this one tells our story of why we celebrate this wonderful holiday. We celebrate the birth of Jesus and believe His birth is the one gift we are most thankful for.

So, what about you? Does your tree tell a story? Have you put away all your sentimental ornaments for a few years to have a "pretty" tree? Maybe it's time to pull some back out and share your story with the world.

Lindsay

linked here:
Thrifty Decor Chick
Elements Interiors

Advent Calendars

Well. I dropped the ball again this year!

I've had my eye on all of these adorable Advent calendars & had great expectations on making one for myself, but here it is, December 2nd and I've yet to break out any creative effort to get it done. So I gave in yesterday and bought this one from TJMaxx. Not bad for $20! They gave me a discount because it was missing the "counter". I tied a jingle bell to the end of some ribbon and it was as good as new. So I can take credit for that right??

Here are the calendars that I've had my eye on. So cute!

Maybe they'll inspire you!

It's only the 2nd after all!!

This one from Canadian Family is made of envelopes. Each contain a fun family activity for the day.

You can hide little goodies or sweets under these paper cones. Idea from Disney.

And isn't this the cutest idea from Martha Stewart?? Who would have thought of baby socks?

And this one is made from a muffin pan. Check out Shabby Chic crafts for more pictures.

Do you have an advent calendar that you love??